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"Ever wonder if City Council is as contentious and chaotic as it is sometimes portrayed? Here you can get a progressive perspective on some of the issues from someone who spent four years in the trenches. Totally unbiased, though!Feel free to comment but keep it respectful, just like they do at council."

Monday, September 3, 2012

Lobbying for integrity

True to her word at council a month ago, Councillor Joni
Baechler is requesting her colleagues on the Finance and Administration
Services Committee (FASC) to recommend to council the hiring of an Integrity
Commissioner to help council improve its code of conduct and its adherence to
it.

And that’s not all. She also wants to see the implementation
of a lobbyist registry for city hall. And, she is again requesting that members
of council voluntarily file their various and sundry interests with the city
clerk’s office to increase transparency and accountability of councillors.

Little of this is new. On January 1, 2007 municipalities in
Ontario were offered the opportunity to appoint a municipal ombudsman, an
integrity commissioner, an auditor-general and to set up a lobbyist registrry.
All of these were optional; the only new position that was mandated was the
closed meeting investigator. The city could either hire its own or use the
provincial ombudsman. Over the objections of the mayor and controllers, other
than me, the council of the day chose the provincial ombudsman who would
undertake the work without any additional payment.

Fortunately, we had no need to use the services of the
ombudsman; that was left to the new council. Its behaviour resulted in
complaints regarding three separate events. Two of these, the Occupy London
removal from Victoria Park and the Harmony Grand Buffet Lunch, were considered
worthy of investigation and although neither resulted in a finding of an
illegal meeting, the ombudsman provided some words of advice to avoid citizens’
concerns in thefuture. The third
complaint was deemed not to warrant an investigation. So far, so good.

In the meantime some other questions were raised with
respect to other matters of integrity. There was the issue of how councillors
spent the taxpayers’ largesse when it came to their expense accounts. And how many
miles do councillors actually drive in responding to constituents’ concerns? Should
there be some kind of accounting for these? And what about how members treated
each other, their constituents, and those who sought to do business with the
city?

There were also questions about relationships and interests
that members of council might have that could affect how they perceived and
dealt with an issue. The Municipal Conflict of Interest legislation is a fairly
narrow document dealing only with pecuniary interests for councillors and their
immediate families. But what about other relationships—organizational,
political or religious—that might influence decision-making? After all,
councillors are to work on behalf of their constituents and the municipality in
general, not personal relationships within it.

During my time on council, I had pushed hard for an
integrity commissioner, someone who could be called upon to assist council with
developing an updated code of conduct, to deal with questions of ethics, to
handle complaints from the public. Despite opposition from some, eventually we agreed
to approve a policy on retaining an integrity commissioner and advertising for
the same via a request for proposals. We even set aside money in the budget,
money which, to the best of my knowledge, is still there, unspent. The request
for proposals never made it to the newspapers or the city website.

We had also discussed from time to time the implementation
of a lobbyist registry but since we had our hands full with the integrity
commissioner, that possibility did not receive a lot of consideration. Besides,
there was concern that by asking lobbyists to register, you might just drive
them underground. Better leave well enough alone so that everyone could see the
obvious lobbying going on.

And going on it was. Calls from developers and their agents
were routine for those of us on the planning committee, especially if the
application was contentious. So were visits from organized community groups. And
there was a steady stream of visitors to councillors’ offices in the days and
weeks leading up to budget deliberations.

If anything, that has gotten worse with the current council.
It’s pretty commonplace to see developers and councillors huddled together
before planning and council meetings, in councillors’ offices or in the hall
outside chambers. Some councillors go as far as to hobnob with the developers
on the council floor shortly before and even during the actual meeting. It’s
hard to believe that under those circumstances councillors are working in the best
interests of their constituents.

A lobbyist registry would regulate those consultations. It
would require lobbyists, paid or not, to register with the city, indicate who
they wish to see and why. It wouldn’t actually stop the lobbying, but it would
make the process more transparent.It
might be interesting, for example, to learn which councillors were contacted by
the developer’s agent about the site plan for the condo development on Reservoir
Hill.

But will it make a difference as long as our election
financing rules are unchanged? As long as we have councillors who are able,
courtesy of the development industry, to run campaigns at the spending limit
with little or no fundraising effort? When the money just pours in? And you don’t
have to fund all the councillors; you need only eight votes.

It’s not hard to see the effect of differential funding on
councillors’ voting patterns, especially if they have served more than one
term. There are those who receive virtually no donations from those who do
business with the city. They are not part of Fontana’s eight.

Public declaration of interests, hiring an integrity
commissioner and implementing a lobbyist registry won’t guarantee that our
councillors are ethical, but it may just give the public some tools to demand
accountability. It’s a start.

Public estimation of politicians would seem to be at an all
time low. Too many of us regard all politicians as crooks. And yet there is no
denying that there are hard-working elected officials who consistently place
their communities ahead of their personal comfort and aggrandizement. If an integrity
commissioner and a lobbyist registry can help to flush those individuals out,
let’s have it. We need more of them.

Councillor Baechler's blog on her motion to the committee can be found here.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I'd just like to know what the hell's the point in there being costly PUBLIC INQUESTS into violations of human rights that not only cause death or loss of ability to make a meaningful contribution to the betterment of society but also endanger the general public and society at large?

We keep on paying lawyers, m.p.p.'s, insurance companies, social workers, caseworkers, police, court officers and judges to assess and make decisions about the same violations that continue to persist, year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation.

Gina, this is very helpful. The measures Councillor Baechler recommends simply make sense as a way to mature municipal government's processes. The time has come, though it is also clear that the time has come to protect those processes through reform of campaign financing at the municipal level.

Despite this last problem, by accepting Councillor Baechler's recommendations, members of City Council and the Mayor would be able to demonstrate that they each comprehend why transparency is important to protecting everyone's interests- developers, Councillors, and citizens alike. If Council and the Mayor oppose these recommendations, it will appear that either 'business as usual' won't stand up to fair and open scrutiny, OR that they don't grasp how these measures protect everyone. So let's see what happens.